School board to consider baseball program at BHS

A group of parents, students and coaches attended Monday night's school board meeting seeking a varsity and junior varsity baseball program at Baldwin High School this spring and requested to be on the board's December agenda.

John Griffin, acting as the spokesman for the group, said parents were willing to provide start up costs for the program which he estimated to be about $5,000. He requested the school district pay for the coaches' salaries and transportation. Earlier this year, the board agreed to add football at Baldwin Junior High under a similar arrangement.

"We'd like to put together partial funding," Griffin said. "We'd like to move quickly and put together a program for 2001, like Wellsville."

The Wellsville school district recently added a baseball program. That leaves Baldwin and Anderson County as the only two high schools in the Frontier League without a baseball program.

"Let's beat them (Anderson County) to the punch and not be the last to have high school baseball," Griffin said. "We can have $5,000 in the district's hands by the first of the year. We want to do whatever is necessary to make it work."

Board president Ed Schulte asked to see an interest survey and cost estimates. District athletic director Roger O'Neil said a survey was conducted in 1999, and 51 students who are currently in high school indicated they would go out for baseball.

O'Neil plans to meet with Griffin before the Dec. 11 meeting to work out some details. O'Neil said he thought the start-up cost for the sport would be more than $5,000. He also thought it would be hard to schedule games for this spring.

"My recommendation, is if baseball is added, to add it for 2002," O'Neil said.

The board did not make any promises for a spring program.

"We can't guarantee a time frame for making a decision," Schulte said.